


Where the Road is Dark

by Humbuggy



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games), Sparrow Hill Road - Seanan McGuire
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Ghosts, Gun Violence, One Shot, POV Outsider, Paranormal, Storytelling, Supernatural Elements, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, no knowledge of sparrow hill road required
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 11:16:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21409294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Humbuggy/pseuds/Humbuggy
Summary: There’s always been highways; roads and trails like arteries running through America, keeping her heart beating, keeping the life running to all parts of her. But before phantom riders raced down black-top in steel-skinned cars, they were men and women on ghostly flesh-and-blood horses. They were the midnight riders who appeared on the road, who emerged out of the shadows of dust and asked to share your fire.The road from Annesburg to San Denis has always been a bloody one, and never more so than when two strangers meet on a dark night.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	Where the Road is Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: Game standard gun violence, non-graphic descriptions of death.  
-  
I fell heavily in love with the lore of Seannan Macguire's Sparrow Hill Road and HAD to do a RDR2 fusion because they fit together so perfectly. For those who haven't read SHR, Rose Marshel is a hitchhiking ghost who was run off the road on the night of her prom and she's been hitch-hiking eversince. Detailed knowledge of either isn't required but will make it more fun. This may become a series.  
-  
Title from: Further On Up The Road by Johnny Cash.

* * *

** Rose Marshall – 1999 **  
  


_There’s always been highways; roads and trails like arteries running through America, keeping her heart beating, keeping the life running to all parts of her. _

_And where there’s roads, there’s road ghosts._

_I’ve been a hitcher a long time, but there are ghosts who’ve wandered these roads for longer than I have; ones who died back when the west was the west, way back when the roads snaking across the back of America weren’t sealed with tar but blood. I don’t know who the first road ghost is – or was. After all, when does a road become a road? But wherever a road is, so are we; living, dying, drifting ghosts. _

_But before phantom riders raced down black-top in steel-skinned cars, they were men and women on ghostly flesh-and-blood horses. They were the midnight riders who appeared on the road, who emerged out of the shadows of dust and asked to share your fire. _

_Many of these ghosts have moved on now, but some linger in places where the twilight echoes of history lie close to daylight skin of the world; on the ghostroads, the dead can linger forever. But I’ve met them, sure. Sometimes they even tell their stories, if they feel like talking. If they think you’ll listen well enough. _

_And maybe, just maybe, you’ll listen well enough to this one._

* * *

**David Cooper - 1899**  
  


There’s a scent of death in the air. Death rides close to these roads – always does, and like’ly always will – but it’s strong tonight. The twilight of America, that first underlayer where ghosts tread and darker things breathe, has slipped close to the daylight skin of the road where the living walk in blissful ignorance.

I can feel the midnight stirrin’ too, hungry and hunting as it always is.

Tonight, someone may die – will die – unless I do something. Unless I am there.

I ride Feather off and up out of the freezing ghostroads and onto human daylight. I can feel the change in layers immediately. I’d say the daylight’s a relief, but it aint’ all that different. The cold still bites the dead much the same. Feather snorts softly, movin’ with easy steps. She don’t make noise as she walks. There’s no crackin’ of branches or dull footfall noise; she don’t affect the daylight that much, though her silver-dappled coat is dusty from the road.

Here it is, the smell of rosemary and cigarette smoke hangin’ heavy in the air. It’s the smell of death; it ain’t sure thing, ain’t a certainty. But unless I try to stop it, death’ll come all the same.

The campfire glows gold in the dark.

The man sittin’ at the fire lifts his head up, like a wolf, as Feather and I approach. He’s got a mean lookin’ revolver in his hand. Blackened engraving winks like a dark eye on the barrel. There’s a rifle beside him and I’d bet a shotgun’d be in easy reach. A dangerous man. His eyes, a piercing blue-green, are wary. He’s smart to be. Not everythin’ that rides these roads is as benign as me, and I ain’t that benign neither.

‘Evenin’, mister,’ I say, tipping my hat back. I keep my hands steady on Feather’s reins, holdin’ ‘em well clear of the revolver on my hip. ‘You mind company?’

The man looks me over, gaze slanted catty-corner and mind tickin’ it over as he judges me. Say yes, I will him_._ My stomach don’t growl, but the hunger gnaws at me all the same. The fire is a promise of warmth. The rosemary grows thick around him for a heartbeat length. I’d beg him for it if I knew that’d sway him. There ain’t much I wouldn’t do for warmth and food, and rest – to try and keep him from dyin’ this night. _Mercy_, say yes.

Feather drops her head, giving it a tired shake. She carries me well, we midnight riders, but the rules apply to her too. It ain’t fair, no, but she can’t eat, can’t rest, can’t get no warmth from the fire ‘till we’re invited to. Her breath heaves out a sigh, lungs like a bellows. I rub my hand just below where her smokey mane meets silver coat; _easy girl, easy._

‘Fine horse,’ the man says eventually. His voice sounds like a long-gone home.

‘She carries me well, for our sins.’ I rub my hand over her shoulder, cast him a smile.

It ain’t a lie. She carried me well in life; loved me enough to carry me in death. Loyalty like that is a rare thing in any existence.

The man’s gaze softens, just slightly, just enough.

‘Sure,’ he says, jerks his head in invitation. ‘Take a seat, I guess.’

I can feel the warmth of the fire immediately. I turn my face to the light of it, soakin it in like a cat does. It’s a blazin’ sun in a rosemary night. _Christ_, to think I used to like the smell a’ rosemary.

‘Thanks kindly, mister.’ I swing off Feather, tie her reins to the saddle horn. She’s relaxed now, grabbing mouthfuls of roughage with swift movements. The man’s horse, a tall stocky chestnut with a white shock of a mohawk, eyes us warily. Canny beast.

Still, the smell of rosemary don’t abate, not even after I take a seat, stretching grateful hands to the fire’s warmth. It keeps drifting ‘round us; a nearin’ death all twisted up in the air.

There’s a tired edge to the man's eyes. It ain’t safe to stop in this country, specially not on this road, but exhaustion stops a man all the same.

Sometimes their deaths are so obvious it kills me. I mean, ‘course it don’t, but tragedy all hits the same.

‘What brings you out these ways?’ I ask, ‘Ain’t many who like to ride Murfree country.’

His eyes flicker to me. Fire plays on his face, over the hard edges of his body, on his shoulders. He’s a big man. Handsome. The thought hits with a pang.

‘I’m huntin’ up north,’ he replies finally. ‘Got my eye on some grizzlies.’

I resist the urge to cast an eye over his horse and that scarred chestnut coat. Ain’t many bears that shoot back, no sir.

‘Good money on ‘em,’ I say instead.

‘Yeah,’ he shrugs, uneasy in his skin. ‘Well enough.’

He stifles a yawn, resettles himself, cracks his neck.

Damned rosemary everywhere.

‘I’m David,’ I offer. I want to know his name. Need t’ know it. ‘David Cooper.’

‘Arthur Callahan.’ The last name has the air of a well used lie. And I place him finally.

Yes, I know this kind of man. I brush up against his kind often; men and women and near-beasts made less than human. There’s probably a ghost roamin’ someplace with his bullet in their skeleton. Men like him make ghosts and become ghosts. He and his kind ride close to the twilight, dippin’ in and out. It’s a knife’s edge he lives on. For the death of me, I can’t tell how he’d end up – if he’d die and leave only a skeleton or if he’d become a ghost haunting the everafter.

But I like him. For all a that, I like him well enough to stay at his fire, well enough to try and stave off his death for a different day. Arthur “Callahan” weren’t meant to die just yet; not here, not now.

‘Well, Mister Callahan,’ I say, ‘You mind if I partake of some of your coffee?’

It startles him. He don’t let it show though.

‘Sure, go ahead,’ he says, nodding companionably at the coffee on the fire and the tin cup.

I pour. The coffee comes out thick black sludge. The heat of it is a shock on my palm and I curl my fingers on the cup real tight. I can’t never get enough warmth; mostly I feel nothin’ but cold – cold as the waters of Lake Isabella way up in the Grizzlies, way up where it’s always ice and winter. The coffee is bitter when I drink – I ain’t much for the taste but it pours like a fire down my gullet and leaves a heat in the belly. 

Feather’s fillin’ her belly too, cropping grass with happy snuffling sounds. Ghost horses don’t need to eat, no ghost does truthfully, but ghosts like us midnight riders miss it. So, when we can – like when we’re invited to share a fire, or food, gut-rot liquor or campfire coffee – we take our fill. We try to get the feel of livin’ inside us real good.

Above, the moon ain’t no more than a fingernail of light. The stars wink as dark clouds blacken their silver gaze.

‘You ride this road often?’ I ask between greedy swills.

‘Often enough.’

I nod to myself, stretchin’ out the silence. I’m a ham actor, but even the dead gotta amuse themselves somehow.

‘You ever seen a ghost, Mister Callahan?’

‘Ghosts?’ He makes a scoff. Some trivializin’ noise. I don’t let him dismiss my question. I lean forward to look him at him dead-eyed.

‘Ever saw somethin’ you ain’t able to explain? Somethin’ that sets the dogs a-running? Sets the hair on your neck crawlin’?’ 

Arthur “Callahan” thinks it over, rubbin’ his fingers like he’s got an itch for a cigarette. His voice, when it comes, is quieter. Slower. A thought risin’, somethin’ dredged way up from the muck of memory.

‘I’ve seen some strange things, I guess. Ain’t sure if I’d say it were ghosts though. Sometimes, it seems the world gets stranger ‘round me every day.’

‘Well,’ I say, droppin’ my voice and makin’ Arthur cock an ear close, ‘there’s always been ghosts on the roads; them restless dead wandering the dirt tracks of this great country. Riders killed by bad men, travelers come to cruel fortune, wanders who share a fire but find themselves betrayed. Killers with unfinished business.’

Arthur has gone quiet at my words; they sit uneasily in him. I bit back a cruel grin. Even though I play at one, I ain’t never proclaimed to be a saint.

‘They say there’s a midnight rider on a steed of white smoke.’ Feather snorts in the background; she ain’t never had no patience for epithets. ‘They say on nights where the moon ain’t nothing but a thought, he rides the bloody stretch of roads between San Denis and Annesburg; a spectre followed by the promise of death.’

Arthur cocks an eyebrow. His voice is more humoring than humored, though I know better than to believe the act. ‘And let me guess, you’ve seen him but narrowly escaped with your life?’

‘Well now, I don’t know about that.’ The smile crooks across my face, unbid. ‘Can’t say hard I’ve been livin’, see.’

He snorts a laugh, a corner of his mouth twitchin’. ‘Ain’t that all o’ us,’ he says before he laughs again, a thought struck at him, some thread of dark humor he don’t share with me. ‘Alrigh’ lets hear that story of yours, Mister Cooper.’

I stretch out a leg, tip my head to him. I keep my voice conversational like; ain’t nothin’ but an old friend talkin’ secrets, speakin’ true.

‘It were about ten years ago when it happened. Man was tryin’ to get from Annesburg all the way to San Denis, takin’ the road at midnight. It were dangerous country then, more than it were now. Stoppin’ anywhere for rest was for fools. But he’d been ridin’ hard, road-dust thick on his tongue. He was tired, and a fool with it.’ I stretch the pause a little and Arthur leans in, shiftin’ in place, eyes hooked on me.

I lick my lips, rub a thumb over the scruff on my jaw, and continue. ‘When he stopped, he pulled off the road to a small clearin’ – ain’t no bigger than this one. He told himself he’d only stay little while, just enough to rest his horse. Just enough to close his eyes. A moment, no more.’

I pause, sip coffee. It’s bitter, bitter, bitter. The smell of rosemary strong in my throat. I ain’t never liked tellin’ this story, but it’s the one I know best.

‘It weren’t the stench of the Murfree’s what woke him, weren’t the sounds of their howlin’, but of hands at his throat. You ever had man try’n choke the life outta you?’

Arthur’s face is dark. A memory chases across his face like whipped dog. Yes, he knows the feeling well; ain’t no need for him to say something ‘bout it.

‘Ain’t nothing like the feel of that fear. Fear like that gives a man teeth; he fought em’ off, sixshooter emptied and two men dead. But the Murfree’s never rode alone. He could hear them howlin’ in the dark, too many to fight. He tried to outrun ‘em instead. His horse weren’t nothing but a shadow flash in the night, she ain’t never run so fast. But he was tired, and so was she.

‘They made it a quarter mile down the road when the Murfree’s caught em. You ever heard a horse scream, Mister Callahan? His mare lived long enough to scream as they fell.’

I swallow hard, closin’ my eyes against the rise of cold within me. Feather lifts her head, eyes me solemn. ‘You could guess at what the Murfree’s did to his body, but you wouldn’t want to.’

Arthur don’t flinch but I can see him shyin’ way from the thought. He’s seen things, for sure, maybe enough to see it vivid ‘gainst his eyelids.

I don’t let him settle; instead, my voice is low n’ serious as I say, ‘Now his ghost haunts the stretch of road, still running that last quarter-mile, unable to rest. He’s seen on dark nights, on a skull-faced mare of white smoke. They say his ghost brings the devil, demandin’ blood to feed this road, and when he rides, someone is sure to die.’

The silence, when I finish, is cold as a grave.

‘That’s a hell of a story there, feller,’ Arthur says, voice croakin’ roughshod at the edges. There’s too much twilight in him not too feel the truth of it – though given his druther’s he’d rather deny it, I can tell.

I could put his jitters to ease.

I don’t.

‘What’s truth?’ I say instead.

I meet his gaze solid. The smell of rosemary is risin’, risin’. I can feel it snarlin’ up my spine. Death so close, I can feel it.

‘Maybe his ghost don’t haunt this road, maybe it do. But the bones of David Cooper weren’t ever found.’

Arthur stiffens and his tired edge of exhaustion falls away under the adrenaline fear of ghost stories. Some stories hit too close to bone, hit livin’ and writhin’ and breathin’ before you. I smile, sudden and certain as a death’s head, all grinnin’ skull and no mirth.

Arthur chokes on profane breaths, the trailin’ end of words cut off as the howl of the Murfrees rise in the thickening night. And this is what I was here for, ghost story in hand. Without it, he would’a nodded off, been caught dreamin’.

Maybe he’d have woken the way I did, maybe he wouldn’t have woken at all. But he’s alert and fearin’ as his hand falls to his revolver, his horse laying back its ears and readying to flee into the dark. Feather lifts her head too, ears pricked, eyes more wolf than horse. She knows what’s comin’, can feel it.

‘Christ -’ Arthur swears as he gets to his feet, eyes squinting into the dark. I can feel the midnight risin’ round us; oil-like and thick, poisoned to the marrow. I’d choke on it, and so should Arthur “Callahan”, but men like us have got real good at breathin’ in it.

I can feel them in the shadowy edges of the trees, and so can Arthur. He squints out beyond the camp-fire glare. The edge of moonlight catches a faint movement, starved bodies of beast-like men in the shadows.

Arthur’s got a dead eye – I’ll give him that. His revolver cracks out once, twice, thrice – and pained howls follow, gurgling to dead silence. 

A branch cracks out behind us and he spins in place, firing from the hip. The Murfree’s body drops just out of the circle of firelight; blown out ribcage and wet guts open to the night.

Arthur relaxes, but I don’t.

There’s more within the Murfree’s than skin and men; somethin’ rides in them, cursed n’ hungry.

It rises now, raisn’ the body with it; the stinking flesh twitches its limbs, jerkin to a stand. Arthur swears with profane fear. His gun rises again, as he stands his ground and I stand mine too. The shade’s body jerks as Arthur’s last two shots connect but keeps coming. Arthur pants earnest breaths now, harsh terror pourin’ off him like the stink of piss. But the body has reached the edge of the camp-light now – and now’s what I was waitin’ for. I raise my own gun. It’s hot n’ eager in my hands. I barely have to pull the hammer, barely have to touch the trigger.

It kicks in my hand. Once. Twice.

The shade in the body gives a shriek when the bullets hit. The Murfree corpse collapses as it drops the body and fall through the layers on the ghostroads, tryin’ to flee. It won’t get far, not with that cursed metal in it.

I can feel my skin peelin’ away, leavin’ my body as it was on the edge of death; flayed skin and bared bone, a dark ring of bruisn’ round my throat.

Feather gives a high call, liftin’ her front hooves in an impatient rear. I can see her from the corner of my eye; the garish wound of bone and flesh where her liquid-soft eye had been, the blunt grin of teeth in her blown-out jaw.

The smell of rosemary has faded.

Arthur “Callahan” will survive this night - unscathed but not untouched. He stares at me, his eyes wild, his lips bloodless. His breath shakes him, shakes him like nothin’ else has done.

The wails of shades rise in the dark, echoing ‘long the ghostroads.

Feather squeals again. We need to go.

I turn from Arthur, fling myself on Feather’s back as she wheels, tail like a war-banner, and leave Arthur behind in his circle of fire-light. Together, Feather and I descend into the twilight.

I hope I don’t see Arthur again. I hope he keeps to his daylight and stays out of the twilight shallows. But hope is a thin thing for men like him an’ me. We ride too close to the twilight an’ we know the smell of it well; we are men who leave the shallows for deep waters and drown.

Feather gives a shrieking cry, and I grin at her huntin’ sound. The gun at my hip is heavy n’ hot. Under me, Feather moves like lightnin’ fire.

It’s time for us to hunt.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading this fic, if you liked it drop me a comment! They always make my day.  
You want more author's commentary or to just wave your hands at me? Say hi, I'm friendly!  
Yeehaw.


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